And The Wind Began To Blow
by Tell Her This
Summary: When tragedy hits Sacred Heart Hospital, the staff have to deal with their own and each other's grief. AU
1. And I Got Ready For The Future To Arrive

**AN:** So, this has been sitting around on my laptop for a while, and in celebration of not losing everything on my laptop, I decided to post it. But I feel I should warn you, it's a major angst-fest. Please let me know what you think. :)

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**Chapter One: And I Got Ready Fot The Future To Arrive**

_And the wind began to blow and all the trees began to pant  
And the world in its cold way started coming alive  
And I stood there like a business man waiting for the train  
And I got ready for the future to arrive  
__(Woke Up New, The Mountain Goats)_

It's only when Turk walks out of the operating room that he feels the tears running down his cheeks. It's only then he's aware of the child's blood on his scrubs. It's only when the rest of the surgical team follows him out of the OR that he notices that they are all crying too.

Dr Wen walks into the scrub-in room as everybody else is leaving. He puts a hand on Turk's shoulder. "There was nothing you could have done. There was too much damage done before you could even try to fix it." That doesn't make Turk feel any better.

He stands there, in that scrub room, and time seems to stop. Turk knows it has to be moving, but it doesn't feel like that, because all he can see and hear is himself calling the time of death of a four-year-old.

Turk's legs start moving, but he doesn't feel as though he's controlling them. They take him along the corridor, the empty corridor. They lead him towards the stairs but Turk as to hold on to the banister because he's not sure he can hold himself up. He is taken into the ICU.

The ICU is quieter than usual. There's no noise of talking, just the faint sounds of medical machines. Any other time, this would bother Turk, but now he doesn't care. He can't think of anything but what happened in that OR.

He wanders. Somewhere. Anywhere. He only stops walking when Dr Cox stands in front of him.

"I can't." Turk's voice is quiet and it's shaky. "I can't be the one to tell them."

"Ghandi, you… there's no one to tell, Turk."

Turk looks up from the ground and sees that Dr Cox's eyes are red and tearful. He hopes that what Dr Cox said doesn't mean what he thinks it does. He doesn't want to believe what Dr Cox said, but he has to. Because Dr Cox never cries and Dr Cox never calls him Turk.

"I'm really sorry, Turk."

But Turk doesn't hear him. He starts walking again, but he doesn't know where he's going. He can't think. He can only hear an amalgamation of what Dr Cox said and himself calling a child's time of death.

He walks and before he realises it he's outside the hospital. His shift isn't over yet, but he doesn't care. He is still in blood-covered scrubs, but he doesn't care. Because the world he's standing now is a different one to what he entered the hospital this morning in. This new world is colder, and Turk doesn't like it.

People outside are laughing. They're laughing and they're happy. The world is spinning madly on, but Turk doesn't understand that.

Turk sits in his car, but he feels completely uncomfortable in there. The frame of the car seems to close in on him. His hands feel awkward gripping the steering wheel. He can't get his head around controlling a car, when the same thing has just claimed the lives of three people he loves. _Loved._ But he has to go home, he _needs_ to go home.

Carla. He has to go home and tell Carla all this. It's all going to devastate her, and Turk doesn't know how he'll be able to hold her up when he doesn't know where to find the strength to hold himself up.

And Izzy. She's too young to understand completely, but she'll know something's wrong. She'll see Mama and Daddy crying and she'll ask questions. And Turk doesn't know how to answer them.

This new world he's in doesn't make sense.

* * *

As Chief of Medicine, it's Perry Cox's responsibility to tell the other staff members of the situation. He says the situation, because if he calls it anything other than that, it would be impossible to remain professional for everyone else, especially when it's hard enough to stay professional for himself.

There's a certain camaraderie, a certain solidarity in the hospital that Perry has noticed at times like this. Everybody is untied by shock, and by grief and by concern for the other members of staff who were closer to those at the centre of the tragedy than they are. Were. They fight and beat Death every day, which is why situations (that word again) hit them harder. But, even if they weren't doctors and nurses and even if they didn't fight Death every day, it would be impossible not to be hit hard by this.

Perry concludes his talk to the hospital staff (including the janitor) by saying that they need to stay strong because the patients need them to keep it together. They really can't deal with any more deaths today. But if anybody wants to talk about it, the hospital's grief counsellor, Dr Hedrick who is standing to his right, will be available at any time to talk.

As grief-shaken hospital personnel file quietly, solemnly out of the doctor's lounge, Hedrick says, "That applies to you to, you know."

"I'm sorry?"

The shorter man smiles comfortingly (or at least an attempt at comforting). "Feel free to talk to me at any time if you need it."

Perry and Hedrick had never been the best of colleagues, but this is not the time for petty conflict.

"Thank you."

"If you want," Hedrick says, "I can even call the family members."

"No thank you. This is something I need to do."

Hedrick nods, and leaves Cox to his own grieving process.

One of the nurses has been good enough to have the contact details on the nurses' station for him. He goes to the nearest phone and dials the number written on the page. When the person on the other end of the line answers, it hurts Perry to think that they have no idea what's about to hit them.

"Hello, Dan," he says nervously. "This is Perry Cox speaking. I think… I think you should down, buddy."


	2. Monkeys In My Heart

**AN:** Hey guys! Thanks for all the great reviews! They are much appreciated. Hope you enjoy this chapter! :)

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**Chapter Two: Monkeys In My Heart Are Rattling Their Cages**

_Eagle in the dark,  
__Feathers in the pages.  
Monkeys in my heart  
__Are rattling their cages…  
__Slipping through the bars  
Aware of the danger  
Of riding in the cars  
Taking candy from strangers…  
__And that's just the way it goes.  
__  
(Falling Awake, Gary Jules)_

The first thing Perry wants to do when he gets home is hug his ex-wife and his kids extra-tight. Because today he has seen an entire family – one of the happiest he knew – wiped out by some drunken idiot, who lived through the accident. It doesn't make sense.

He walks into his apartment quietly, just in case his kids are asleep. Today he seems to have lost all sense of time. His children aren't asleep. They're both in the living room, and his five-year-old daughter bounces towards him. It makes Perry's eyes sting, because his daughter is a year older than their daughter is – _was_ – and he can't help how easily it could have been his family in that car on that road at that time.

"Daddy!" Jennifer Dylan jumps up and down at her dad's feet, and Perry lifts her up. "Look what I drawed!" The girl waves a sheet of paper in front of her father's face.

Perry puts his daughter on the ground and takes her drawing to look at it. She's drawn her family. She's there; her nine-year-old brother is there. Her father is there and her mother is there. They're stick-like and cartoony, but it's undeniably them. And it almost brings a tear to his eye.

Perry's son Jack walks into the room. "Hey Dad," he says.

"Hey, Jackie boy," Perry says in reply. He tries to keep his voice cheery – or at worst, neutral. He doesn't want his children to know what happened today. He doesn't know how to tell them what happened to day. He tells people – strangers – about deaths of loved ones every day, but they're children, they're _his_ children and he doesn't even know where to begin.

Perry thinks it would be easier to tell them what happened if it was a grandparent or an older person who died. If it's an older person who dies, he could explain to the kids that that's just what happens when people get old.

But how does he begin to explain to his children that their friend was killed?

He's tried so hard to protect them from everything, tried so hard to make their childhoods happier than his was. But there's no way he can protect them from this.

Perry thinks Jack will be able to handle this better. He's older and he can understand life and death better. But Jenny… Jenny is going to be devastated. She's only five and LucyDorian is –_was_- her best friend. Jennifer, Lucyand Izzy Turk, they have –_ had _- their own little trio. They're in the same kindergarten class, same dance class, they're almost inseparable. The three of them are supposed to be singing together in their kindergarten class play on Tuesday night. Perry wonders briefly if the play will even go ahead.

"Hey." Jordan walks into the sitting room, and rests her body on the doorframe. "You're late," she says calmly. "We missed you at dinner."

"I know."

Perry gives her a solemn look, as if to say that they'll talk later. Jordan seems to understand because her facial expression changes from one of tranquillity and happiness to one of concern and worry.

"Well, it's waiting for you in the oven." Jordan's voice is quiet and low, and it lets Perry know she understands this is something serious.

"Thank you." He hugs his wife tightly, and gently kisses the top of her head, and for once in his life he actually feels fortunate. He feels privileged.

"Daddy," he hears Jenny ask. "Will you tell us a story?" But Jenny doesn't bring him a book, because he always makes up an original story and why should she think tonight would be any different?

Perry sighs, not because he doesn't want to tell her a story, but because he doesn't know what to tell her. "Sure thing, honey."

He sits down on his chair. Jenny climbs on to his knee, and Jack sits next to him. He wants to tell them a happy fairytale, but all he can think about is what happened today.

So he tells them a fairy tale of a family, Dee Jay, Eleanor and Lucinda and how they were all in a bad accident with their horses. They were tired and in pain and were in a dangerous forest with all kinds of creatures and bad things that would hurt them. The family got separated, but they had lots of friends in the forest who cleaned up their cuts and bruises and helped them meet each other again on the other side so they could live happily ever after.

The kids love the story, but as he tells it, Perry keeps looking up at Jordan with sad, explaining eyes. The frown that she wears by the conclusion of the tale makes Perry think that Jordan has understood what his glances were saying.

The kids go to their rooms shortly after that. Perry says goodnight to them in their rooms, but Jordan stays in the living room, her hand held gently over her mouth, her face etched with disbelief and sorrow.

Jordan is sitting in the same position when Perry re-enters the living room a few minutes later. "That's not how it really ended, is it?" Jordan's voice is quiet and dreadful, but there's incredulity there too. Hope too, maybe.

"That's… not… how it really ended."

As Perry sits down next to her, he watches as her face seems frozen. Not in shock, but something else he can't quite place. It's like she's questioning herself, or maybe just plucking up the courage to let her brain accept it.

"What do we tell the kids?" She asks quietly.

Perry sighs sadly. "I… don't know." He wraps his arm around her, and quietly assumes his role as the rock that everybody leans against for support.

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	3. I Drink For All The Planets In Between

**Chapter Three: I Drink For All The Planets In Between**

_I drink for all the secrets that you seek  
I drink for all the memories you keep  
I drink for all the dreams you'll never dream  
I drink for all the planets in between_

_(Eulogy, The Hereafter)_

The last time Dan ate cake was when his dad died. And today he's sitting in the bar where he's supposed to be working, drinking himself silly. There's a half-eaten slice of cake sitting to the right of his current beer bottle. There's a private party – some random chick's birthday – and the guests were feeling generous. But he keeps looking at the cake and thinking of the bitter irony.

Dan's boss has walked past him and looked down at the empty beer bottles that surround him more times than Dan cares to count. Dan would be intimidated if it wasn't his boss who kept giving him free refills. Boss knows why he's drinking so heavily. Dan was here, at work when Dr Cox called him to… yeah.

He called his mother today. It was the first time he'd spoken with her in at least a year, since the last time she got married. Mom thought he was phoning to reconcile. She sounded happy, and regretful of everything that had happened for them not to speak for so long. Dan almost didn't, _couldn't_ tell her that her other son, her daughter-in-law and her granddaughter were all gone.

His mind isn't clear right now. It hasn't been since 7.13pm when his phone rang. Because if it had been, then he would have been coherent enough to get himself on the next flight out and he would have been able to tell Mom, or at least her new husband, what had happened without slamming the phone down, shouting at her because she was never there for him or Johnny when they were kids and now it's too late.

Dan thinks of his nephew. He wonders if Sammy even knows yet. And then Dan thinks of his own dad, and how difficult it was to cope when he died. And Dan wonders how Sammy, at age 5 will be able to cope with losing his father when he could barely cope at age 30.

He's still sitting at the bar, like he has done for most of the night. His head is cloudy from the alcohol, but it doesn't make him forget like he wanted to. If anything, it makes everything more prominent. He knows he should probably quit drinking now while he's still lucid enough to remember where he is and that his brother died today, but that would be thinking clearly, wouldn't it? And that clearly hasn't been his strong suit this evening, why break the routine now?

The bar stool next to him is scarped along the floor and Dan glances to the side to see one of the party girls perched on the stool, looking at him, and smiling at him. He doesn't smile back.

"Hey Sad Eyes," she says. "Why the long face?"

"My brother, sister-in-law and my niece were killed in a car accident," he says frankly, because it's easier than trying to protect himself from admitting it only to be asked more questions. It's like ripping off the band-aid in one swift rapid movement.

The girl's face falls. She stutters and fidgets and avoids eye contact. Clearly she wasn't expecting such a heavy answer. "Oh shit," she mutters remorsefully. "I'm really sorry for your loss. And I'm sorry I asked like that."

"It's okay," Dan says sadly. "You weren't to know."

"Wh… when?" She asks timidly, nervously, afraid she's overstepping a boundary.

Dan looks at the clock above the bar. "Six hours ago."

"Jesus Christ," the girl says quickly, like the words left her mouth before she had a chance to stop them. "I'm so sorry for your loss."

Dan doesn't know what to say to her. He knows she's sorry for his loss, he know his boss is sorry for his loss, but it doesn't make anything better.

"All the 'sorry for your loss's in world can't bring them back though, can it?"

He and the girl sit in a solemn hush, until the bartender walks by.

The girl lifts up one of his empty beer bottles and says, "Two more please. This guy could really do with a drink."

What he really needs is his brother back, Dan thinks.


	4. Janitors Padlock The Gates

_**AN: **Hey! Thanks very much for all the reviews of the previous chapter! I'm hoping this one might answer some of the questions you might still have. Thanks for reading! :)

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**Chapter Four: Janitors Padlock The Gates**

_Post office clerks put up signs saying position closed  
And secretaries turn off typewriters and put on their coats  
Janitors padlock the gates for security guards to patrol  
And bachelors phone up their friends for a drink  
While the married ones turn on a chat show…  
__Nothing ever happens, nothing happens at all  
The needle returns to the start of the song  
And we all sing along like before  
And we'll all be lonely tonight and lonely tomorrow_

_(Nothing Ever Happens, Del Amitri)_

Janitor has noticed how remarkably quiet the hospital has been tonight. Not that there have been less people or less patients or less worried family members. There's still bee the same amount of activity. But the doctors and nurses – they've been quiet tonight. Much quieter than normal, like they've been subdued. Like they're mourning. Janitor thinks that if they were all dressed in black, this could just as easily be a funeral parlour.

Then he thinks it might as well be.

Janitor finds it strange. The people, the doctors and nurses, they're used to death. They see it every day. But it's always different when it's one of your own, isn't it? Because it's not just a patient or a stranger. They really knew these people.

Janitor's last task for the night is to lock one of the gates in the parking lot. He walks out the door and stops for a second, just to take a breathe of the cold, crisp night air. He loves the night air. It makes him feel… alive.

As he negotiates the many padlocks of the gate, other footsteps move towards him, then stop. Janitor looks up to see Dr Wen. On any other day, Dr Wen would just walk by and Janitor would keep his attentions with the padlocks, but tonight the two men look each other in the eye and nod. No words are exchanged between them, but that little moment says so much about how they deal with grief here at Sacred Heart. People don't always get along here, they don't always talk, but when the chips are down, they're all there for each other no matter what jobs they do. That thought makes Janitor smile as he drives home.

He doesn't sleep much that night. The wind outside is howling, and the recently started rain is battering against the window. But even if the weather wasn't so bad, Janitor thinks he'd be awake anyway.

He's always had a soft spot for her. Blonde Doctor. When they were younger, he admittedly had what could only be described as a crush on her. He liked her, her really did. But he knew she would never like him in the same way and he eventually made his peace with that.

He liked her because she was one of the few people in that hospital who treated him like a person. If they saw each other in the corridor they would smile, say hello, maybe occasionally stop and chat. She would always ask him how he was doing. Just _yesterday_ she stopped to ask him how he was. She even sat with him at lunch Janitor felt like she was one of the few people who saw past his crazy. Maybe that was because she was crazy herself.

He told her once that he was one of the few people who saw past the crazy. It was after he really screwed up. For some stupid reason he had bet Dr Cox his van that he could get Blonde Doctor to go out for dinner with him. She did, and he had such a good time that he told her Dr Cox needed to see them on an actual date, so they went out again. She found out that he'd lied and got mad. He felt so guilty about that, and now he seems to be thinking about it again.

He always looked out for her. When she got engaged, Janitor went up to Scooter and warned him that if he ever hurt her, he would have to hunt him down and kill him. Janitor just always felt protective of her. And he knows there's no way he could have stopped this from happening and nothing he could have done, but in a way he feels like he failed her.

And Scooter, for that matter. Okay, so he and Scooter were never friends, and he was always playing pranks on the kid, but none of it was done out of hate. He didn't hate the kid, even if he did make his life hell. Sometimes he threatened to beat him up, and he did some pretty nasty thing, but there's no way on this Earth that Janitor would have wished this on the kid.

The next morning, Janitor leaves for work early. It's not like he's losing out on sleep or anything. But instead of driving to work, he walks, even though it's still pouring with rain, because he's had next to no sleep and the last thing Sacred Heart needs is another member of its staff involved in a careless driving accident.

On his walk to the hospital he passes a stationary shop. He goes in and makes a purchase.

His journey to work is short after that. When he walks into the hospital he notices that it's just as quiet and subdued as it was last night. He figures everybody is still in a state of shock.

As he walks through the corridor, he keeps expecting to see Blonde Doctor or Scooter around. Somewhere around here. Maybe he's in the same state of shock and denial as everyone else.

The elevator is empty when Janitor first walks into it. It's silent. He thinks about how different it's going to be around here without all of them. He thinks of Scary Nurse Wife and Black Surgeon. Janitor thinks Scary Nurse Wife will cope better. She's going to be the rock, he thinks. But Black Surgeon – he's been friends with Scooter since they were in college and it's hard to imagine one without the other. And he operated on their kid, too. It's going to be tough for him to come back from that.

Two floors up, the elevator stops. The doors open and Dr Cox walks in. Like last night when the Janitor saw Dr Wen, the two men nod at each other. They're silent as the doors slide shut.

"It's going to be a rough few days," Dr Cox says quietly.

Janitor thinks that's an understatement. "Yeah."

There's a ding sound and the doors open out on to the second floor.

"I guess you just gotta power through it," Dr Cox says resignedly, before walking out of the door.

Janitor thinks for a second. "Yeah," he murmurs to himself before he also walks out of the elevator and into the doctor's lounge and checks that nobody else is there.

There's a thing the Janitor does. He never calls anyone by his or her name. But that doesn't mean he doesn't know them. He just likes to make it his 'thing' to give people a nickname.

In the doctor's lounge, Janitor walks over to the table. He takes a pen and the blank book he bought out from its bag and places it on the table. He opens the front cover and on the front page he writes:

_Condolence book in memory of staff members Elliot Reid, John Dorian and their daughter Lucy Dorian, who sadly passed away on Saturday evening. They will all be sadly missed._

Janitor lays the pen down next to the open book, takes one last look at the book and the message he has left, before walking out of the doctor's lounge.


	5. Marbles Being Thrown Against A Mirror

_**AN: Thanks for the great reviews everybody! :) Hope you like this one! :)**

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**Chapter Four: Like Marbles Being Thrown Against A Mirror**

_Walked down the soft shoulder and I count my steps  
Headed vaguely eastward, sun in my eyes  
And I lose my footing and I skin my hands, breaking my fall  
And I laugh to myself, and look up at the skies  
And then I think I hear angels in my ears  
Like marbles being thrown against a mirror...  
And when somebody asks if I'm okay  
I don't know what to say  
And along the highway  
From cast-off innumerable seeds  
Wild sage growing in the weeds._  
_  
(Wild Sage, The Mountain Goats)_

Carla tries to keep it together when she at home. She tries not to cry because if she cries, Turk will cry and Izzy will know something's wrong and Carla's not ready to explain what has happened to her five-year-old daughter yet.

Turk is a mess, and Carla can't blame him. He's just lost his best friend and he really doesn't know how to begin to deal with this. So she tries to help him. But in amongst taking care of her husband, Carla almost forgets that she has just lost her best friend too.

Naturally, when she hasn't been caring for her husband or her child, Carla's thoughts have turned to Elliot. But Carla doesn't let herself ponder for too long because she has to deal with Turk's grief and she doesn't know if she'll have the strength to do that if she thinks about her own.

Carla's driving her car now. She's driving forty minutes to see Sammy, because nobody has seen him since his daddy died. Or since his stepmommy died. Or since his little sister died. Carla wonders how this little kid's is going to cope. But she turns her radio up loud so she can block the thoughts running through her head because if she doesn't she'll start crying and she can't do that. She has to be strong.

Carla manages to keep her thought clear (more importantly, her eyes dry) until she reaches Kim and Sammy's house. As she walks up the pathway, she tries to prepare herself for a child that's different to the one she knows. She prepares herself for a Sammy that's quiet, subdued, heartbroken and not the happy, smiley, laughy little boy she's used to. Carla knocks on the door and she prays for the best.

It doesn't take long for Kim to answer the door. When she invites Carla in, Kim hugs her. She asks how Turk is. Carla says he's devastated. Then Kim asks how she is, and Carla doesn't know how to answer. She wants to say that she's struggling to cope with a husband who's falling to pieces and how whenever she looks at her little girl she wants to cry because she feels so guilty that she has to tell her friend is dead. And Carla wants to tell Kim that every time she feels like things are getting too much, she picks up her phone to call her best friend, only to remember that she's dead too. But Carla doesn't say that. Because that wouldn't be being strong, would it?

"How is… how is Sammy taking it?" Carla asks concernedly.

Kim frowns. "He was upset when I first told him. But he doesn't seem to understand. He still thinks JD will come and pick him up at the weekend."

Carla sighs sadly. "Poor kid."

Kim leads Carla into the living room, where Sammy is sitting on the floor, playing with his train set. He watches the wooden train go round and round the track, and then it occurs to Carla that he's smiling. The little boy she was expecting to be heartbroken and quiet is smiling. And he laughs when his train derails and he has to put it back on the track. Sammy's having fun. Somehow, that breaks Carla's heart.

Carla and Kim talk for a few hours. They talk about their kids and life in general. Then they talk about the people know that died. And they talk about Sammy and Lucy, and how the little similarities between them. Like the way they both daydreamed and how they had the same eyes. Kim talks about how much Sammy loved his little sister, even though they lived in different houses, and how she thinks Sam's going to be such a protective big brother when they get older. And then she changes her tenses.

"Sammy would have been such a protective older brother."

Carla finds Kim's last sentence strange. They're talking about what Sammy would have been when Sammy is still here, sitting in front of them playing. And then it strikes Carla that Sammy's life is going to be filled with 'would have's. 'My sister would have loved to play with this' when Sammy gets a swing set for his birthday. "My stepmom would have loved that present' next Mother's Day. 'Your Dad would have been so proud of you' when he graduates.

Then her mind drifts to Izzy and Jenny might have a few 'would have's of their own. Lucy would have loved this film. Would Lucy have approved of this guy I'm seeing? Would we still have been such good friends?

Just like Kim always said Sammy would be a protective big brother, Carla always thought that Izzy and Jenny and Lucy were going to be friends all through their lives. Technically for Lucy, Carla thinks, they were. But nobody expected all of little Lucy's life to be just short four years.

Carla has to leave now. She has to drive an hour back to pick Izzy up from school. And it occurs to her that it's Monday, and normally she would pick Lucy up from school too because JD and Elliot are both working late. _Were_ both working late. Carla can feel a lump building up in her throat and she has to stop herself from thinking about it. It seems that's all she does now.

Carla kneels down beside Sammy and tells him that she has to go now. She has to pick Izzy up from school now, but she'll be back to see him soon.

Sammy looks up at her with hopeful eyes. "Can I see you on Saturday when I stay at Daddy's? Me, Izzy and Lucy are going to build a den in the garden!"

Carla can't respond to that. She doesn't know how to respond. She looks to Kim, who nods to her and mouths 'I'll deal with this'.

Carla watches as Kim reminds Sammy what happened on Saturday and it's almost too much for her to bear.

It's like Carla's holding her breath as she walks put of the house and back down the concrete path. She's breathing, she knows she is, but it feels like there's a pressure in her chest because she won't let herself breathe deeply. Carla climbs into her car and she drives away, but she isn't sure where to.

Carla knows that her daughter's best friend was killed in a car accident two days ago, and when Izzy finds out she'll need taken care off too.

And Carla even knows that her husband's best friend was killed in a car accident two days ago. She knows her husband is falling to pieces because they were friends since they were teenagers. She knows she has to take care of him because there's no way he can completely take care of himself.

And she's just seen a little kid have to be reminded that his dad died. She just watched a little kid start to bawl as he climbed on to his Mom's knee after being told that his stepmom and little sister were dead too.

All those people need to be taken care of. And Carla doesn't mean to sound selfish, but what about her? She's lost a best friend too. And she wants to cry and grieve and just take some time to think about and question everything that's happened. And she wants someone to take care of her when she feels like she's crumbling, but Carla knows she can't have that.

Carla's eyes are stinging. They fill up, and she can't see properly so she pulls over. She tries to breathe again, but something isn't right. It feels like her breath is catching in her throat and she's shaking. Carla stares straight out of her of the windscreen, but her vision is blurry. Thoughts fly through her head faster than she has time to process her. And before she even realises it the tears are streaming down her face and she doesn't even try to control them.

This will just have to be a moment of weakness.


	6. Then Looking Upwards I Strain My Eyes

**AN: **Thanks for all the great reviews. Hope you enjoy this one. :)**

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**Chapter Six: The Looking Upwards I Strain My Eyes**

_Then looking upwards I strain my eyes  
And try to tell the difference between shooting stars and satellites_

_(Passenger Seat, Death Cab For Cutie)_

Isabella Turk is a smart girl. She can read well and she isn't afraid to speak to people and she's the only person in her kindergarten class who can speak both Spanish and English with a five-year-old's fluency. She's clever.

But she's intuitive too. For instance, she knows that if she wants something from Mama, she should ask for it in Spanish because Mama can't resist hearing her little girl speak in her mother tongue. If she wants to win Daddy over, all she needs to do is show him her cutest cheesy grin. She knows when to back away too, though. And she knows that when Mama starts chattering insanely in Spanish it's time for her to run into her room because Mama's angry about something.

Izzy knows that something is wrong. She knows this because Mama and Daddy haven't been at work for the last couple of days and because Daddy's eyes are always red and because Mama is trying too hard to look happy.

It isn't just at home though. At school today, Mrs Dreyden was being really nice and she didn't give the class words to place in sentences like she does every other day and she let them have extra play time. And she looked like Mama too; she smiled all day but the look in her eyes said her face hurt.

At the end of the school day, Izzy walks out of the kindergarten entrance with Jenny Cox. Izzy notices that the other kids' parents are quieter than usual and they're whispering to each other. But they're not speaking to Jenny's Mommy. Or is Jenny's Mommy not speaking to them?

Izzy and Jenny walk out of the school gates together. Jenny walks to her Mommy and her Mommy gives her a big hug. Izzy's Mama isn't here though. Izzy needs to get the yellow bus home because she lives further away from the school. But Mama will be standing at the bus stop to meet her there.

As the bus drives along the road, Izzy watches as the houses and the trees and the people fly by as blurs. She swings her legs because her feet can't reach the floor and she wonders _why_ everyone looks so sad. The bus slows down and Isabella sees Mama smiling and waiting on her. It makes Izzy happy, even though she knows Mama's smile is false.

Izzy jumps down the steps of the bus and runs into Mama's open arms. Mama takes her hand and they walk down the street towards home. Mama asks her about school, but Izzy doesn't tell her that the adults have been acting strange because Mama is one of them. Izzy tells her Mama that Mrs Dreyden didn't give the class homework tonight and Izzy thinks it's weird that Mama doesn't act surprised.

Izzy and her Mama are quiet as they walk down the street and for a moment Izzy forgets that everybody is acting weird.

But she wonders why Mama starts to cry when she asks why Lucy wasn't at school today.

---


	7. If You Want To Know What Makes Me Sad

_**AN: **So I'm trying to cheer myself up by updating this. I'm not exactly sure how that works though. I'm currently sitting at home, choked with the cold, having been up since midnight. Not the greatest of days. Little word of advice for you all though: Never try to play flute when you have a cold. It really doesn't work. Anyway, cold induced rant over. Hope you like this one, and please let me know what you think. Thanks.

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**Chapter Seven: If You Want To Know What Makes Me Sad**

_If you want to know what makes me sad  
Well, it's hope, the endurance of faith  
A battle that lasts a lifetime  
A fight that never ends_

_(SRXT, Bloc Party)_

Turk has been wearing his crucifix a lot recently. He wears it, tucked inside his shirt, like it helps him understand what has happened.

He's in their house today. He's there because at some point the decision will need to be made as to what is to happen with the things they left behind and Dr Cox thinks that the longer they leave it, the harder it will be to begin. So Turk is here, without anyone else, because somebody needs to begin and if he's not working then feels like he needs to be doing something.

He went to Mass on Sunday, the day after everything changed, but he felt strange being there. Like he didn't belong there.

Seconds after he enters their house there is a knock at the door. It's the next-door neighbour. She asks if everything is okay, because she hasn't seen the Dorians in a few days and it isn't like them to disappear for days without letting one of the neighbours know.

Turk frowns. "I'm really sorry, but there was a car accident and they all passed away." The words leave his mouth easily. It's like he's talking about a patient, someone he doesn't know. But it isn't just denial he's experiencing; it's sheer disbelief. He doesn't believe, he can't believe this is happening.

There is an eerie atmosphere in the house. Nobody lives here anymore, but the house looks, feels so lived in. There's a book on the coffee table, bent at the spine, lying cover facing upwards, just waiting for its reader to pick it up again. A stack of mail on the kitchen counter that they mustn't have had time to read before leaving. A teddy bear that Turk's sure he and Carla bought for Lucy lying in a haphazard heap on the sofa.

There's a room upstairs that Turk wants to check. It's a spare room that sat unused, undecorated save for the standard pure white paint. Four days ago, they were talking about how, after just short of three years of living in this house, they were finally getting around to decorating this room. There are samples of paint colours on the wall. Most of them are at adult height, but there are paint markings further down the wall. Turk kneels down to see what they are, and his eyes stings as they read the smudgy, yellow-painted letters that spell out 'Lucy'. There's a smiley face there too, that clearly wasn't the work of a child.

Turk feels like grief just smacked him full-force in the face.

He's tried praying too, but he can never find the words to say. He can't think of anything other than asking what they did to deserve is. Why did this happen? Why couldn't God have taken the drunken jerk that crashed into their car? Why does he deserve to live? Why didn't they deserve to live?

The house is too quiet. Turk has come to hate silence, because when it's quiet his grief-induced thoughts are crystal clear and he would really like for once not to be able to hear himself think.

The last time he lost his faith was at Christmas of _their_ first year. He's trying harder this time.

Turk switches on the stereo, but he doesn't look for something to listen to. He doesn't _care_ what he listens to just as long as it isn't his own thought. The CD already in the player will do.

He freezes when he hears the first track of the CD. Its would-be happy piano melody makes him cry so hard he can't breathe properly. As he sits on the floor, he clasps his crucifix in his hand, but it doesn't give Turk the certainty he was looking for.

Don't stop believing, the song says, but right now for Turk that's just so damn difficult.

---


	8. Walking On The Freeway

_AN: Hey! Thanks for all the reviews of the previous chapter. And just a little disclaimer: I don't own the song mentioned at the end of this chapter, or any of the song lyrics used in this story._

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**Chapter Eight: Walking On The Freeway**

_They never tell you truth is subjective  
They only tell you not to lie  
They never tell you there's strength in vulnerability  
They only tell you not to cry  
But I've been living underground  
Sleeping on the way  
And finding something else to say is like walking on the freeway_

_(Something Else, Gary Jules)_

It's Tuesday night. Night of the kindergarten class play. For Jordan Sullivan, it really is a bittersweet occasion. Yes, she's happy and excited and nervous to see Jenny sing tonight, but the whole evening is tainted with sadness.

Jenny has a solo in a verse of the finale song. So does Izzy Turk, and so did Lucy Dorian. And the last time Jordan saw Lucy (and Elliot, for that matter) was when Lucy was over at her house, rehearsing for tonight. That was Friday, and on Saturday they were both dead.

There's an atmosphere, Jordan has noticed, amongst all the parents here. They all know what transpired at the weekend, but nobody has told their kids. Not yet anyway. All the kids just think that Lucy is sick, and that's the reason they had to change some of the performances for tonight. Jordan asked that Jenny and Izzy didn't get their performance taken away from them. Jordan wants them both to have this memory of happiness and accomplishment before their carefree naivety is taken away from them and they have to get through something that could floor most adults.

It's unfair, Jordan thinks, that the other parents will have so little to deal with. Sure, they'll have to tell their kids about Lucy's death (or at least some of them will. She's overheard a one or two parents say that they won't tell their kids and hope that they just forget Lucy was even in their class. It's an idea that Jordan finds completely ridiculous for one simple reason: kids talk to each other), but she and Carla, they'll have to tell their kids that their best friend, and their 'aunt' and 'uncle', died, and pick up the pieces of the kids' grief, all while dealing with their own. In the grand cosmic scheme of the universe, it's unfair. Jordan knows that's simply a horrible thing to think, but she thinks it anyway.

Carla is sitting to Jordan's right. Jordan knows that Carla is finding it much tougher to be here than she is. Carla was much closer to Elliot than she was, and Carla's husband was best friends with Lucy's dad since they were teenagers. It's a much bigger loss to them, Jordan decides. And Jordan has noticed that Carla keeps glancing to the seat to her right, the seat that Elliot should be sitting in.

The stage curtain opens to reveal the class waiting eagerly to perform. Jordan sees Jenny and Izzy. But she has to stop herself from instinctively looking for Lucy too. Suddenly it seems a much more sombre occasion.

As the kids perform their first group song, Jordan thinks. On Friday night, while the kids were practicing and playing, she and Elliot blethered for a few hours. Jordan and Elliot have never been the greatest of friends, not like Carla and Elliot a… were, but they still chatted about everything, and their kids called them 'aunt Elliot' or 'aunt Jordan'. And about half an hour before Elliot and Lucy left, Elliot said that she and JD were going to take Lucy to Disneyland in Orlando next summer, but they weren't going to tell Lucy about it so she wouldn't get over-excited about it for the next six months. Jordan made some sort of joke about how jealous the other kids would be.

Somebody taps Jordan on the arm and it snaps her out of her thoughts. She looks to the right and Carla is looking at her, and Jordan can see that her eyes are filling up with tears. Carla holds out the school play programme. With a feeling of confusion and apprehension, Jordan reads the class performers list.

_Brendan Allen._

_Louise Anderson._

_Jennifer Cox._

_Lucy Dorian._

There it is. The reason Carla is now struggling to keep it together.

It's an affliction that that they've all had to cope with recently. For Jordan, it hasn't been so much an emotional keeping it together. Rather, she's been struggling to keep lying to her kids. When Jenny asks if she can go to Lucy's house and play, Jordan struggles to tell her no, when before her answer was 'Let me call aunt Elliot and see if it's okay'. When Jenny asks why she can't go to Lucy's house, Jordan struggles to find a better answer than 'Because I said so.' And when Jenny looks at her with hurt eyes, Jordan struggles not to apologise and say she didn't mean it. But what's worse than that is when Jack asks her what's going on, because he's old enough to see through her little white lies.

The play passes by quickly and all the kids have sung their little hearts out. Jordan has been keeping a particular eye on Jenny and Izzy. They have seemed so happy all night. They've been smiling with every song they've been singing. Right now, it almost hurts Jordan to see them so happy, when she knows what they're going to find out in a few days.

The show is drawing to a close. Jordan knows this because Jenny and Izzy are stepping forward from their stock positions to centre stage. Jordan frowns when she notices that both Jenny and Izzy look to their left to the place where Lucy would have been standing. Jordan glances at Carla, and it appears that the girls' action didn't go unnoticed by her because she too is looking at the seat where Lucy's mother should have been. The empty chair is there, like a haunting reminder that they don't need.

The sound of the piano emanates through the whole room, and Jordan instantly recognises the opening notes. And she wonders how she never realised before now how horribly ironic the song the girls are going to sing is.

Once again, Jordan looks to Carla. The kids haven't even started singing yet, and Carla's already nearly crying. This is going to be an emotional train-wreck, Jordan thinks.

Jenny is first to sing. But before she begins, Jenny looks to her mum. Jordan smiles at her, as if to say 'You can do it, sweetie'. Jenny smiles back at her then breaks the eye contact and begins singing. "_Is it a kind of dream floating out on the tide?" _Jenny's singing voice is soft, sweet and innocent, and the kid doesn't know just how heavy the words are falling on the audience, particularly her mother and aunt Carla. _"Following the river of death downstream? Oh, is it a dream?"_

Jordan doesn't look to Carla, but she knows from the sniffles and jittery breaths emitting from Carla that she's crying, but strugglingagainst the odds to keep it together.

Izzy seems to have noticed her mother's emotion, because she too is looking at Jordan with a puzzled, worried expression on her face. It's like she's asking 'Is my mama okay?' So Jordan smiles at Izzy like she smiled at Jenny, and Izzy begins her singing.

"_There's a fog along the horizon. A strange glow in the sky. And nobody seems to know where you go. And what does it mean? Oh, is it a dream?"  
_

If Carla wasn't crumbling before, she is now. She's sitting in her chair, her head held in her hands. She's trying to keep her sob hushed, but it's a fruitless mission. And it's causing a painful lump in Jordan's throat.

Once again, as the children on sing the chorus of that goddamn ironic song, somebody taps Jordan on the shoulder, as Jordan glances round to look at the woman from the row behind that she only vaguely recognises. "Is she okay?" the woman asks, like it's any of her business.

"What the hell do you think?" Jordan snaps.

The woman, freshly put in her place, sits back in her chair and doesn't ask any more questions.

For only a few moments, Jordan takes her concentration away from Carla's emotion. She focuses on the singers on stage. For right now they're singing Lucy's verse, so loudly and clearly.

"_There's a high wind in the trees. A cold sound in the air. And nobody ever knows when you go. And where do you start? Oh, into the dark?"_

And that's it. Jordan's crying too. She didn't want to, at least not here. Because she's tried to stay strong for Jenny and Izzy and even Carla, but her trying isn't enough and it can't stop the inevitable.

"_Bright eyes, burning like fire. Bright eyes, how can you close and fail? How can the light that burned so brightly suddenly burn so pale? Bright eyes."_

As the song ends, and the curtain closes all the parents in the room stand up and applaud the kids who have all performed so well. But it brings a new wave of sadness for Jordan, because she thinks that they should be applauding for Lucy too, and she's looking to the space where Lucy's mother should be standing applauding her child.

Jordan Sullivan is crying in public, and for once she doesn't care.

For a few minutes after the curtain closes, Jordan and Carla sit and wait on their daughters in an emotional silence. It's not that they don't want to talk, but Jordan's afraid they might both lose it again if they do.

Jenny and Izzy bounce into the hall to meet their mothers. They're happy and smiling and laughing. Jordan struggles to maintain her equanimity. She glances to where Carla is hugging Izzy, but crying too. Jordan frowns.

"Mommy, did you hear me singing?" Jenny asks so enthusiastically and hopefully.

Jordan kneels down to the height of her daughter and looks her in the eye. "You were great, honey."

Jenny lowers her eyebrows and tilts her head quizzically. "Mommy, why are you crying?"

"I'm just so proud of you, honey."

Jordan hugs her daughter tightly, and mentally apologises to the innocent little girl for what she'll have to tell her.

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	9. So I'd Best Be On My Way

**_AN:_** Thanks for all the reviews for the previous chapter! I really do appreciate them. Here's the next chapter. Hope you enjoy.

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**Chapter Nine: So I'd Best Be On My Way**

_In the early morning rain with a dollar in my hand  
__And an aching in my heart and my pockets full of sand…  
__In the early morning rain with no place to go  
__Out on runway number nine, 707 set to go  
__But I'm stuck here on the ground where the cold wind blows…  
__So the airport's got me down, it's no earthly good to me  
_'_Cause I'm stuck here on the ground, bored and drunk as I can be  
__You can't jump a jet plane like you can a freight train  
__So I'd best be on my way  
__In the early morning rain_

_(Early Morning Rain, Paul Weller)_

He's on first name terms with the airport staff now. After three days of sitting around this dump waiting for an available seat on a plane, you get to know people apparently.

Dan hasn't spoken to his mother since he slammed the phone down that night. He doesn't know if she going out to where they stayed. He doesn't know if she's going to go to the funeral. _Funerals._

That's what Dan can't wrap his head around. How can they all be gone? How can a four-year-old, with her whole life ahead of her, be gone?

He's been speaking to Dr Cox a lot over the last few days. Dr Cox calls him every so often to see if he has managed to get a flight yet, to ask if he's coping. Dr Cox even offered Dan a place to stay while he's in town for the funeral.

Dr Cox is arranging the funerals with Turk and Carla's help. It's seems absurd, Dan thinks, that it's members of his family of are being buried, but it's people who could just as easily be strangers to Dan that are dealing with things. But the Dorian family argued right when they found out what had happened. There's no way in hell there could agree on anything long enough for them to plan a funeral. And what's more, for all they're blood family, nobody really knows each other. They're lucky if they see each other once a year. Dan hasn't even seen them in a few months. And he knows his mother hasn't seen them since Lucy was a baby. But Turk and Carla and Dr Cox; they saw them everyday. Their hospital family are closer than the blood one, so Dan decides it's only right that they deal with the proceedings.

The proceedings. It seems so vulgar to speak of his family's funerals as proceedings. But there's something in his brain that stops him from one hundred percent accepting what has happened and being able to call it the funeral.

The night it happened, he stayed in the bar for as long as he could remember. He remembers talking to the girl that sat next to him for hours, but he can't remember getting home. The next morning, when he woke up with the world's worst hangover, he found a note on his mantelpiece. _Dan. I just thought I'd leave this note so you knew how you got home last night. I'm sorry for what's happened. Call me if you ever need to talk. Brooke. _She left her cell phone number at the bottom of the sheet. So Dan called her to say thank you for looking after him last night. Since then, they've been calling or texting each other. Brooke asks how he's doing and then they just chat about something other than the fact that three members of Dan's family have died. It's been light relief for Dan, at a time when grief his really kicking his ass.

Dan is still sitting at the bar, like he has been for the best part of three days. But he hasn't been drinking, not to the extent he was the night when it all happened and the night he met Brooke. The bartender won't let him. He keeps saying. "You want to stay sober in case you get a flight." And he looks at him with pitiful eyes. It pisses Dan off.

Right now, he's sipping at a bottle of cold beer; one of the few the bartender has sold him. But he has barely had time to drink any of it when he is tapped on the shoulder.

"Good news Dan," the airline representative cheerily utters with an irritating grin. "We've got you on the next flight at 11am."

Dan is silent. He wants to tell the man standing in front of him that it isn't good news. Nothing could be good news. Because now he has to accept what has happened to his brother's family. He has to admit that he's flying out there for their funerals. Because they're dead.

"You need to be at the gate in fifteen minutes," the rep says.

Dan clears his throat. "I… I just have to make a quick phone call."

Dan steps off to the side, and keys in a number that's become familiar to him. When the person on the other side answers, Dan speaks. "Brooke, it's me. I got a flight."

He tells Brooke that he's scared to go because it means letting go of his denial, and she tells him to be strong because that's what his brother would have wanted. She asks if he's okay, and he says he's trying not to cry. He says he has to go now because his plane takes off soon, and she tells him to call when he lands so she knows he got there okay. And when he's silent, she tells him to call her anytime, day or night, if he needs someone to talk to.

As he waits in the queue to board the plane, he thinks. He thinks about all the things he didn't do for his little brother. How when Dad died, instead of trying to help Little Brother through it, he sat in the bathtub for days on end and got wasted. How when Mom started marrying every asshole that held a door open for her, he started acting up and getting in trouble at school and hanging around with the wrong crowd and mocking JD any chance he could for being a goody-two-shoes. How, when JD said he'd been accepted to medical school, he said 'whoopdefreakingdo'. He was so self-absorbed, so selfish. And if he could, if it meant JD and Elliot and Lucy were still alive, he'd take all the shit he did back.

If, in any way, Dan could change what has happened, he'd do it in an instant.


	10. The Clouds Above Opened Up

**_AN: _**Hey! Thanks for all the reviews! Hope you like this one. :)_

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**Chapter Ten: The Clouds Above Opened Up**

_The Atlantic was born today and I'll tell you how  
The clouds above opened up and let it out  
I was standing on the surface of a perforated sphere  
When the water filled every hole  
And thousands upon thousands made an ocean  
Making islands where no island should go_

_(Transatlanticism, Death Cab For Cutie)_

They're going to tell them today. They're all going to tell their kids what has happened. They're in their own separate houses, but they're all faced with the same unenviable, heartbreaking task.

Isabella sits on her bedroom floor and playing with one of her dolls. It's Saturday, and today she's supposed to be playing with Sammy and Lucy, but Mama told her she couldn't and she doesn't know why. So she plays with her dolls and thinks about the cool den they were going to build today.

Turk stares ahead of himself, like he's in a daze. He imagines he's back in surgery, operating on Lucy. He goes over every detail, remembering what he did, remembering what other people did. In a normal surgery, he would pretend that he's operating on a machine. He would see parts that needed to be repaired, not a person in trouble. But when he was trying to save Lucy, when he was trying to save his best friend's daughter, he couldn't detach himself. He couldn't see a faceless, nameless robot. He tried to be calm, he really did. He replays that surgery in his head, over and over and over again, but every time is different. Every time he thinks of something else he could have done better, some mistake he thinks he might have made. He obsesses over every little detail, what he could have done differently, how he could have tried harder to stay calm. And Turk wonders when the guilt will go away.

Carla is calm. She's calm but she doesn't think about what she's going to say. When she does, she gets scared. She sees her daughter's forlorn frown, her confused eyes, her disappearing naivety. So, instead, she acts as if nothing is happening. She dries the dishes, tidies the kitchen. And when they call Izzy through to explain the last week, she'll know what to say.

Something's happening today, Jack knows. This he knows because Mom and Dad made them sit at the table together as a family for lunch, and the only other time this happens is Christmas or somebody's birthday. This he knows because Dad has been really quiet today, and Mom's eyes filled up when Jennifer asked why Aunt Elliot hasn't taken her, Lucy and Izzy to Chuck E Cheese's like she promised. And now Dad's friend Dan is staying with them, but Jack wonders how he can be Dad's friend when he's never seen him before. It hasn't just been today, though. Strange things have been happening all week. Like Dad having to go to a 'meeting' every night, and Mom being on the phone to Carla all the time. Jack knows something is going on, something somebody isn't telling him, and he would really like all the pretence, the acting like nothing is happening to stop.

Perry Cox is tired. He's tired from the extra hospital workload, from explaining to patients why their original doctor has seemed to disappear off the face of the earth, from having to professionally treat that jackass that has caused all this in the first place. But more than anything, he's already exhausted from being the rock that people lean on, and the sad thing is he knows it's only just began. Because in a few minutes his children are going to need him more than ever. He glances to Jordan, who sits opposite him at the table, and nods, as if to say it's time.

When Isabella walks through to the living room after she's been called for, Carla immediately feels like she might cry. She feels any strength she has built up in preparation for this just disappear as if it was never there to being with. She opens her mouth to speak to her daughter, only to tell her to take a seat of the sofa, but no words escape, and she gets a painful lump in her throat. Now is not the time to crumble, she tells herself, but to no avail. Izzy is looking at her, but Carla can't even begin to explain to her.

Turk can see that his wife is crumbling. And, although it's contrary to his nature of the last week, he finds the courage to be strong for Carla. He tells Izzy to sit down at the couch because Mama and Daddy need to talk to her. And as he and Carla take their seats, he holds Carla's hand and tells her it will all be okay.

Four parents are sitting before their kids, about to give them the worst news of all. None of them want to be here, none of them wants to have to tell their kids what happens. Every kid thinks their parents are superhuman, thinks their parents can make everything better. But there's nothing they can do to make things better for their kids, there's nothing they can do to change what has happened, and that's what scares and hurts the parents the most.

So they look their children in the eyes and tell him that a week ago there was a car accident. Uncle JD, Aunt Elliot and Lucy were all really badly hurt, so God decided that should go to Heaven and feel better.

Perry can almost feel his throat closing up when he speaks about God and Heaven. He's doesn't believe in God, never has, and now that's he's having to tell his children about the death of their friend and people they considered to be family, he finds it ore difficult than ever to believe in someone who would let a happy family die. But his personal scepticism isn't important. His children are important, and if cushioning the blow by letting them believe in a happy Heaven, even if he doesn't, makes the grief easier on his children, then so be it.

Little Jenny looks confused, and sad. "But… I thought only old people went to Heaven?"

Neither Perry nor Jordan has an answer for her. But another small voice does.

"It's like what Auntie Paige says," Jack responds quietly, looking at the ground. "Sometimes God needs people leave earth to help him in Heaven. And although it hurts that they've left us, we know that they're happy in Heaven with God and we'll see them again when we go to Heaven."

Jenny nods, but still cries. Her big brother hugs her, and Perry and Jordan wonder where Jack found the strength to explain death to his little sister in a way that they could not.

Isabella is told by her father that God took her best friend, aunt and uncle to Heaven. Izzy knows about Heaven, her dad has told her about it and she goes to Sunday School. She goes with Lucy, but she didn't go last week because Mama told her it was cancelled. But she knows that wasn't true, because one of the other girls asked her why she wasn't there. And her mind goes back to Monday and Tuesday and all the other times she's seen Mama and Daddy crying and she cries too, because she knows if Lucy and uncle JD and aunt Elliot have gone to Heaven, it means that they're dead. And little Izzy Turk has one question.

"Why did they go to Heaven?"

Turk is silent. Completely silent, because he has no answer. His five-year-old daughter has asked the question he has been asking himself for the last week. He has failed to find his own answer, so how is he supposed to give Izzy one?

Carla has wept the whole time Turk has been explaining what has happened to their daughter. She has been the strong one, the rock for Turk, but when it came to telling Izzy she crumbled. Izzy is her baby; she couldn't bear to say anything that would hurt her. Carla couldn't be more grateful to Turk for finding just a little bit of strength to take over. But now, he too is crumbling, and Carla knows she has to summon any strength to answer their daughter's unanswerable question. She speaks in Spanish, because she doesn't have quiet enough strength to answer in English.

When the parents put their children to bed that night, they're sure to savour every little moment. They tuck the kids in, and hope that tomorrow might be a better day. Carla Espinosa summed it up when she told her daughter that there are some things in life people can't explain and things we don't understand. The best we can do is try, and hope that later, when we're older, that some things might make a bit more sense.


	11. You Don't Need To Win Anyway

**AN: Thanks for all the great reviews! This is the penultimate chapter of this story. I hope you like! :)**

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**Chapter Eleven: You Don't Need To Win Anyway**

_Bad day, looking for a way home  
Looking for the great escape  
Gets in his car and drives away  
Far from all the things that we are  
Puts on a smile and breaths it in and breaths it out…  
Hey child, things are looking down,  
That's okay, you don't need to win anyways  
Don't be afraid just eat up all the grey  
And it will fade away  
Don't let yourself fall down_

_(Great Escape, Patrick Watson)_

Tomorrow is the day of the funerals.

Carla has returned to work just for today. Turk took Izzy to the theme park to cheer her up, and Carla couldn't sit about the house on her own. So she came in to the hospital, deciding that today was as appropriate a day as any to clear out their lockers. Carla thinks 'as appropriate' rather than 'as good a day as any' because there would never be a good day to perform that task.

There was a sense of finality about that task, Carla found. By clearing out their lockers, Carla felt as if she was erasing their history from the hospital. The ups, the downs, the break-ups and the make-ups that had punctuated their lives here in the hospital. With their old lockers emptied, the only evidence of their existence would be hearsay and their nameless faces in the 2005 staff photograph. In a few years, it occurred to Carla, when the staff moved away from this tragedy and as new people moved in – as is inevitable in a hospital – nobody would know who these two doctors were. They'd just become 'people who used to work here'. Carla couldn't bear to think of that.

When she was cleaning out Elliot's locker, Carla came across some photos. Some recent, some from years ago. There were photos from their intern year, from their wedding, some baby photos of Lucy. But most heartbreaking of them all was a photo Carla remembered well. It's from just a few weeks ago. Everyone is there; JD, Elliot, Lucy, Carla, Turk, Izzy, Jordan, Jenny, Jack and even a reluctant Dr Cox. They all went to the park because the weather was nice. Carla remembered the hilarity of trying to get the photo taken in the first place, the many mishaps they had with the autotimer.

Carla doesn't know if it was because she'd taken some time to herself or if it was just that she thought about how quickly things had changed, but it all hit her then. She stared at the photo – for how long, she isn't sure – and she cried. And when, by some way or another, she regained her composure, she requested that she work for today, even if it so she didn't have to go home and let herself think.

As Chief of Medicine, Perry has to educate the medical students and interns who walk through the Sacred Heart Hospital door; full of hope and illusions of how great it will be to be a doctor. One of the things he teaches is to leave personal problems outside the hospital doors. Bring personal problems to work affects the care you give to a patient. But he knows that that is sometimes damn near impossible. So when Carla came to him, begging to be given a shift, he had his scepticism. There was something about Carla, however, a desperation in her eyes that swayed him to let her work, even if it was against his better judgement, providing she worked with him all day.

There's another thing that Perry teaches the doctors-to-be. It's professional decorum. The ability to treat all patients with the same respect, regardless of what you know about the patient, what their background is, what crimes or injustices they've committed. It's something he tries to instil in his students, yet it something he's struggled with this week. In fact, he remembers teaching this to Newbie during his intern year. He even remembers what he said to the kid:

"_It's always easier to treat the nice ones nice isn't it? But your drug addicts, your child abusers, your garden variety jerks…"_

Your drunk drivers who killed a happy couple and their four-year-old daughter.

Perry refused to let any other doctor treat the jerk. He couldn't trust them to stay professional. To be fair, he can't really trust himself to stay professional, but this way if he screws up he only has himself to blame and he doesn't have to yell empty punishments at another doctor for something he doesn't truly believe is wrong.

He made sure Carla knew that he was treating the guys who ran into the Dorians' car, and he gave her the option not treating the guy. But she refused to sit out. She said she wanted to see the face of the bastard who killed her friends.

What bewilders Perry the most about the driver is that he's only eighteen. He's barely out of high school and he's already committed a heinous crime. And while Perry has been treating the driver, he refuses to speak to him unless it is absolutely, medically necessary. If the patient asks a medical question, he will respond, but aside from that, nothing.

"So, doc, when do you think I might be getting out of here?"

"Hopefully soon, so I never have to see your sorry ass again," Carla venomously responds as she inspects the IV drip, and Perry thinks she might have spoke before she had a chance to stop herself.

Perry doesn't chastise Carla. Instead he just says: "We'll be discharging as soon as surgery gives you the all-clear."

"You had surgery?" Carla asks. She scoffs in some sort of disbelieving way. Maybe disbelieving the irony. "You had surgery and you survived," she repeats. Her eyes are focused on the ground, but Perry can still see that salty tears are starting to fall out them. "If it were up to me I'd have left you to die on the table."

"Carla," Perry says. But his tone isn't a disciplining one. His voice is comforting – or at least Perry means it to be.

"You can't talk to me like that," the driver responds. "She can't speak to me like that."

"Really?" Carla snarls, as the tears stream from her already red eyes down her face, leaving a mascara trail. "Because I think you should be counting your lucky stars that I'm not smothering you to death with a pillow."

"She just threatened me!"

But Perry doesn't reply to the patient's complaint, because he's watching Carla, whose nails are dug so far into the palms of her hands Perry's worried she might draw blood.

The Latina woman turns towards him. "Dr Cox, I can't be in here," she weeps. "I just can't."

"That okay."

Perry watches as Carla swiftly leaves the room and hurries down the corridor, her quick walk soon becoming a run.

"What the hell is her problem?" The driver questions, as if it's his God-given right to be treated like a king.

"Her problem is you." Perry replies calmly.

"Excuse me?"

Perry paces in the room collectedly, in a way he hopes is all the more intimidating. "Did you know there were three people in that car you hit?" He coolly asks as he takes a seat in the obligatory patients' room chair.

No response.

"Yeah, two of them were doctors," Perry elaborates. "They worked here, in fact. Had done for twelve years. They were my interns when they were straight out of medical school. And that nurse you had a problem with, they were her best friends. The guy who was driving the car had been the best friend of her husband since they were teenagers. Those two doctors _you _hit were godparents to that nurse's daughter. Did you know the driver of that car had a son?"

The patient continues just to stare ahead of himself, showing no remorse, no guilt, no sign of human compassion, and Perry can feel the anger simmering inside him.

"A little five-year-old, who is now fatherless because of you." Perry pauses, letting the words sink in. "And the passenger, the driver's wife, do you want to know what we discovered about her when we were trying to save her life?"

No response.

Perry stands up, moving threateningly closer to the patient. "She was pregnant," Perry responds. "Only a couple of weeks; probably didn't even know it herself yet."

That was a piece of information that Perry hasn't shared with anyone. Not Jordan, not Turk, not Carla. It would hurt them more than they already were, and what they didn't know before wouldn't hurt

"And do you want know who the third person in that car was?" Perry continues, still with no animation from the patient. "Her name was Lucy Dorian. Lucy Reid Dorian. She had a brother named Sammy, her father was named John and her mother was Elliot. Her best friends were Isabella Turk and Jennifer Cox. She liked to ballet dance and she was supposed to be singing a solo in her school class' play and a week ago she told her father that she might like to be a doctor too." Perry isn't sure if he sees a flicker of remorse from the patient, so he lowers himself to the patient's eyelevel and makes sure he's looking directly in his eye when he says the heartbreaking fact.

"She was four years old," Perry harshly tells the patient. "She was four years old and _you_ killed her. You killed a little girl, her mother and her father."

"I didn't mean to kill them, okay!"

"And yet you chose to get behind the wheel of a car when you were so drunk you couldn't even walk straight. You chose to drive at 110 miles-per-hour when you had no chance in hell of being able to control that car. You chose to jump the red light, even though you had no idea if there was another car at the intersection. You crashed into that family's car and you killed three innocent people. And what makes it worse, as if it isn't already bad enough, is that your sorry ass got to live while I've had to explain to my children and that nurse you were giving hassle to has had to explain to her five-year-old daughter that their friend is dead! So you try explaining to me where the justice in this world is? Because if there was any justice in this world, you would be dead in a ditch somewhere and that happy family would still be alive!"

The patient, the driver, the bastard, whatever name Perry calls him, is crying. "I didn't mean to kill them."

"I hope you rot in hell."

Perry leaves the room, not caring that his decorum is left in tatters. Right now there's only one thing he's concerned about. He approaches the nurses' station and asks: "Do you know where Nurse Espinosa went?"

He is directed to the doctors' lounge where, sure enough, Carla is sitting on one of the sofas, staring into an oblivion, the tears streaming down her face.

"Izzy keeps asking me why Lucy and Aunt Elliot and Uncle JD went to Heaven and I just don't know what to tell her," Carla sobs

"Jack told Jenny it was because sometimes God needs people to help him in Heaven," Perry replies as he takes a seat next to Carla. "Carla, I am so sorry. I should never have let you in there with that guy. That was completely unprofessional and wrong of me. I am so sorry."

Carla shakes her head. "I needed… I needed to see the face of the person who did this."

"I know. I know."

"Dr Cox, can I… can I go home?" Carla asks quietly. "I can't stay here, not today."

"Of course you can."

No further words are exchanged between the two as Carla stands up and collects her things. She's heading of the doctor's lounge when she turns to Perry and sadly says: "I guess I'll see you at the funerals tomorrow."

"I'll see you tomorrow."


	12. Let's Pretend That We Can Still Pretend

**AN:** _So this is it. This is the final chapter. I just want to think everybody who has stuck with this story and everybody who has reviewed. I know I haven't always replied to the reviews, but I would like to assure you that they were much appreciated. Thank you. I also want to give a particular thanks to Alice (JDElliotforever) who has dealt with me PMing her on multiple occasion with something along the lines of 'I don't know what to write next *cry*'. So, Alice, thank you very much for all the help you've been giving me with this story. :D_

_Without further ado... the last chapter..._

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**Chapter Twelve: Let's Pretend That We Can Still Pretend**

_Let's pretend that we can still pretend  
Let's pretend that we are young again  
I am only looking for a friend  
Let's pretend that we are young again_

_(Eulogy, The Hereafter)_

The church is a veritable sea of black mourners, but the sun shines brightly. It could almost be a comfort, if this wasn't such a heavy day.

Turk stands in the second row of pews. He stares at the three coffins resting side by side in front of him, and he thinks of all the other times he's been in this church. They were all for happy occasions. Until today, that is. He remembers standing at the altar as Best Man at the wedding of the people they're now burying. Turk remembers how he teased JD for weeks after the wedding because he looked like his knees were going to buckle in when the music started playing. He remembers looking to Carla as if to say 'I knew they'd make it this far eventually'. Turk remembers standing at the altar once again a year later, this time for Lucy's christening. He remembers the look of pride on JD's face and how Elliot was about to cry the whole way through the ceremony. Turk remembers seeing a lot of the same people here as were there that day, and he wonders how many, like him, wonder how the hell it ended up this way.

Dan has never been the best at handling emotional situations like this. He drank himself silly the night before his father's funeral, but not for this funeral. Because all of yesterday, while he was battling with his urge to reach for the bottle, he remembered his brother telling him he had to grow up. So he did the mature thing, and didn't drink, because today is about JD and Elliot and Lucy and it's going to be hard enough without the hammered brother to contend with. Dan knows he's struggling today, because he's standing next to his five-year-old nephew and he thinks that little Sammy didn't deserve to lose nearly his whole family at such a young age. Sammy is going to have to live with this for the rest of his life, and that thought alone is enough to make Dan cry. Of all the mourners here, JD and Dan's mother isn't one of them. She said she couldn't handle seeing her son and granddaughter buried. Dan couldn't believe it. He cursed her for all she was worth, told her she didn't care about them, told her he never wanted to see her again after what she had done. But now that Dan is standing here, listening to the minister say tributes to this tragic family and praying to an elusive god for them, he thinks understands his mother's actions, and he might be able to forgive his mother, just this once.

Three pews back, Perry stands, the children in between him and Jordan. To the right of Perry stands Dr Kelso, the former chief of medicine of Sacred Heart Hospital and Perry's sworn enemy for all the time he was at Sacred Heart. He's always said that Bob Kelso was heartless, soulless, emotionless. But that same man Perry thought he hated is standing next to him wiping a stray tear away from his face.

"Things like this shouldn't happen to good people," the older gentleman says.

"No they shouldn't," Perry replies.

Perry's mind keeps drifting to the thing he knows that the others don't. He thinks of the baby that nobody else knows existed. He thinks that four people died in that crash, because had it not happened, the likeliness is, in a few weeks JD and Elliot would have discovered that they were going to have another kid, in a few months Sammy and Lucy would have had another sibling. And Perry wonders to himself whether that child would have been a boy or a girl, if it would have looked like its mother or its father or a mix of both, much like its sister. He thinks while the minister calls a prayer. He doesn't believe in the God the minister preaches about, but he prays with him all the same. He prays because that's what he saw Jack teaching Jenny to do on the night he told them what had happened. He prays for the good family that didn't deserve this, and he prays for the little kid that would-have-been. Perry doesn't know to what or whom he's praying, but he does it all the same.

Since Jack Cox can remember, he has wanted to grow up to be like his dad. And in the last few days, he's had to grow up tremendously. And since he can remember, he's felt like he's had to be the big brother figure, not only to his own sister, but to her two friends as well. For the first few weeks when he started elementary school, he watched out for them to make sure they were okay, and when they came to him because another boy in their class was giving them trouble, he made sure to give the boy a warning so he wouldn't trouble the girls again. Because that's what his dad would have done. So, after his parents told him about had happened, he knew he had to be strong for his little sister. All week, he had seen his dad being strong for his mother. Why, he didn't know, but he had seen it nonetheless. He can even see it today, when his father looks to his mother to see if she's okay and when he reaches out a hand for her to hold. So Jack knows he'll have to be strong for his little sister. Because it's what his dad would do, and Jack wants to grow up to be like his dad.

Janitor stands to the back of the church hall. He's supposed to at Sacred Heart right now cleaning, but who cares about that. It's more important that he's here. Last night, at the very end of his shift, he took the condolence book home, and he read through all the messages people had left. He thinks about them while he listens to the service, and just from reading everyone's tributes to the family, he knows it fits them to a tee. As the other mourners empty from the hall at the end of the service, Janitor thinks other people should hear their thoughts too.

In the cemetery outside, Carla stands next to her husband, holding up their daughter as she cries. She tries to be strong, she really does, but Carla can't stop herself from crying either. She hasn't slept either, because whenever she closes her eyes, she doesn't see her friends. She sees the person who killed them, and she can't bear that at all. Carla has always worn her emotions on her sleeve, but right now, she wishes she didn't because she's exhausted. She's exhausted in every way possible. From crying when she's alone, from trying to keep it together when she's not alone, from trying to live in denial. Even after yesterday, a little part of her psyche has been clinging on to the hope that this isn't happening. That she's going to wake up tomorrow and it will all be gone. Izzy will be the smiley child she used to be, and not the heartbroken one she's become. Her mind has been clinging on to the notion that she'll walk into her living room and Turk and JD will be goofing around, playing Find The Saltine or Toe Or Finger or any one of the random games they play. _Played. _And she has been clinging to the thought that in a few minutes, Elliot will call her for a coffee and they can talk about their goofy husbands and their daughters. But that hope, that little grasp on denial is fast disappearing, because right now she's watching as the coffins are being lowered into the ground. Three white coffins, one heartbreakingly smaller than the other two, being lowered into a shared family grave. As shattering as it is, it almost gives Carla bit of comfort. _At least they're all together,_ she thinks.

After the burials, the mourners head to the bar where the now deceased couple spent many of their younger nights. It's decorated like a memorial to them. There are photographs of them displayed, some of them the photographs Carla found yesterday. There are some pictures that Lucy drew displayed around the room too, and every thing, picture or drawing, is heartbreaking yet heartening at the same time.

The mourners mingle, swapping happy stories about the people they're here to pay tribute to. They speak of the child who loved to laugh and play and dance. They speak of two doctors, compassionate and determined. They speak of the family's heart, their love, their happiness.

The hum of chatter is sharply interrupted by the feedback squeal of a microphone. It's the karaoke microphone that remains assembled on the makeshift stage, just because it always is and nobody thought to dismantle it.

At the microphone, a man shuffles, not so comfortable with all the mourning eyes focused on him.

"Um… hi," he nervously says. "None of you know my name, but I'm the Janitor at the hospital that JD and Elliot worked at. There was a condolence book for them and Lucy, and I just wanted to read you some things that people wrote." Janitor opens the black book carefully and finds the page that he has indicated with a post-it. "_Dr Reid and Dr Dorian were with us at Sacred Heart since they were interns. They were great doctors and great people. Their passing will truly be a loss to us all._ Signed, Bob Kelso."

Janitor glances to Kelso, who just solemnly nods.

"_I'm really going to miss JD and Elliot. And their little girl, Lucy, was adorable too. If anybody didn't deserve this, it was them._ Signed, Doug."

For a little while, Janitor reads condolences from the book, and it brings some comfort to Dan, to Carla, to Turk, to almost everyone in the room to know how many people thought of the Dorian family.

"There's one more entry I'd like to read out. It's a poem." The Janitor glances down to the book, at his own handwriting, and exhales heavily. "Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep by Mary Frye," he begins.

"_Do not stand at my grave and weep,  
I am not there; I do not sleep.  
I am a thousand winds that blow,  
I am the diamond glints on snow,  
I am the sun on ripened grain,  
I am the gentle autumn rain.  
When you awaken in the morning__'__s hush  
I am the swift uplifting rush  
Of quiet birds in circling flight.  
I am the soft starlight at night.  
Do not stand at my grave and cry,  
I am not there; I did not die."_

There isn't a dry eye in the room when Janitor concludes. With no further words, Janitor steps down from the stage and heads to the bar, satisfied that he's done his part for everybody.

Dan is sitting at the bar when the Janitor stands beside him to order another drink. Dan nods at the gentleman, his own silent thank you. He didn't think he'd have a reason to smile at any point today, but Dan finds that he is. Because his brother and his sister-in-law and his niece were well loved here, and he thinks they would have really appreciated this memorial to them. Dan thinks he might call his mother later to tell her what a beautiful service it was. And Brooke, too.

Towards the end of the wake, it occurs to Turk that everything he has done, everything he has thought, has been in reference to preparing for the funerals, but he hasn't seen past today. He hasn't given a thought to how life goes on after today. But he knows it will. Tomorrow will come, and they'll still be thinking a great deal about JD and Elliot and Lucy. But the days will go by, they'll go back to work, the kids will be growing up. Life will be returning to normal, and JD, Elliot and Lucy will just not be there. Turk won't have his Vanilla Bear to do goofy stuff like World's Most Giant Doctor with. Carla won't have Elliot to talk about all the girly stuff they talked about, and Izzy won't her friend in Lucy to play with and grow up with. Turk wonders if, years from now, Izzy will remember Lucy and her Uncle JD and her Auntie Elliot. He wants her too, he really does. So Turk decides that, as life inevitably moves along, he'll be sure to tell his little girl about her auntie and uncle and the friend she once had and he'll hope that might make it easier for them all to move along.

Once he takes Jordan and the kids home, Perry has to go back to the hospital. He has to deal with all the clerical work that he's has missed because he had, he wanted to be here today. The hospital still continues to run, even though so many of its staff are attending a funeral. Or being buried. Perry thinks that when he gets back to the hospital he'll call a minute of silence for Dr Dorian and Dr Reid, who were buried today along with their daughter Lucy. And tomorrow when he arrives, Perry will have to begin searching for two new doctors to replace the ones who so suddenly left them. Because as crass as it is, how horrible as it feels, the hospital has to continue on, so maybe other people won't have to go through this hell.

All the way home in the cab, Carla hugs Izzy. The little girl is exhausted, having spent most of the day crying. Crying for her friend, crying for her aunt and uncle, crying because she doesn't understand. The little girl is silent, except from the faint sniffles she released every so often as she cries into her mother's black jacket.

It doesn't take long for the cab to arrive at the apartment. Carla carries Izzy, as she has been for a lot of today, up the stairs and into their apartment, by which time, the little girl appears to be sleeping. So, Carla takes the tired little girl straight to her room, and tries to change her into her pyjamas without waking her. It doesn't work.

"Shh…" Carla soothingly says, as she tucks Izzy into bed. "Go back to sleep, sweetie. I'll see you in the morning, okay?" Carla stands up and moves away from her sleepy child.

"Mama?" Izzy's soft and tired voice stops Carla in her tracks. "Will we ever stop feeling sad?"

Carla smiles sadly, as tears form in her eyes. "Eventually, honey."

_Well my friends, we've come to it,  
__The end is drawing near  
__The distant lands are calling  
__And we do not feel fear  
__All the old alleys have new little warriors  
__Our ghosts are finally gone  
__We nodded off and the world moved on _

_(The End, The Hereafter)_


End file.
